On the top of the screen, a progress bar is displayed, showing the player how long they have to get to win the game. In the bottom right there is a oxygen-meter, showing how much health you have left. This will deplete faster if you get hit by obstacles, and can be replenished by collecting the bubbles that occasionally spawn (they are blue circular orbs, not the really fast moving ones).
As for your point on a few power-ups/checkpoints making the challenge the same, I disagree. If we had put in checkpoints, the game would be much easier to beat.
I personally dialed the difficulty so it shouldn’t be really hard to beat, but it might take you a few attempts or more (based on your previous experiences on these types of games, eg. Geometry Dash, Jetpack-Joyride, Flappy Bird, etc.)
Thank you for taking the time to play our game.